i try to stay on top of things in terms of not allowing foods to spoil too badly in the refrigerator, but I do know what the "refrigerate until moldy" edict is like. Whenever I visit my dad in the U.S., which I usually do a couple of times a year, I always go through his refrigerator and find things that must have been there since my last visit like six months before! Not a pretty scene. So again here we have the "good with the bad" theory of great inventions.

Yes, JimT, that's exactly my point! I imagine people didn't make as much food to consume before refigeration or ate everything they made immediately. Now we take the whole "leftover" thing for granted but many people don't finish leftovers. And often fruit or vegetables spoil as well because they aren't consumed. Well, progress, for all its benefits, does usually have drawbacks as well!

Well, in my house, that happens most of the time!! After every meal, if a left-over portion is deemed "enough to save" it has been sentenced to a slow death. The process is, "Refrigerate until Moldy; Discard".

It's really great to hear from people who were alive many years ago how inventions that came along really changed their lives, JimT, and nice that you could share that moment with your dad. I am not surprised by what an effect refrigerators had on people--imagine when the power goes out during a storm, how worrisome it is that the refrigerator will go warm and spoil all the food in there. I guess in some ways people wasted less food, though, because how many times do things we put in the fridge thinking we will eat it later gets tossed in the trash?

Thanks for your comment, spencestan, and I agree the list is a bit "last 30 years" heavy but I appreciate all the discussion points it's brought up. Everyone's comments have led me to consider doing another slideshow and dipping even further into some of these inventions that have been so influential in the last 100 years.

Agree with some of you that this list is primarily the last 30 years. Listing the last 100 years would be huge, ranging from the ubiquitous television, the 'lowly' transistor to the powerful nuclear fission. Even the first satellite (1957) changed the way we live (ever use a GPS, watch satelitte TV, watch video of hurricanes, etc).

This is a great list (of the past ~30 years) and ponders what will we be talking about in the next 30 years? Crytopcoins (e.g. bitcoins), nanatubes, personalized medicine (via DNA scypting), 3-D printing/additive manufacturing, self-driving vehicles (thus 30 years later noone knows how to drive) just to name a few potentials.

Focus on Fundamentals consists of 45-minute on-line classes that cover a host of technologies. You learn without leaving the comfort of your desk. All classes are taught by subject-matter experts and all are archived. So if you can't attend live, attend at your convenience.